palindrome vs. ambigram

[rewboss]

A sort of ambigram -- not an ambigram in the true sense, but very similar -- can sometimes be formed when you write the word with the letters in a column, like this:

T
A
X
I

That looks the same in a mirror -- or, more usefully, if you make the letters out of big neon lights and mount them on the side of a building, you can read the word from either end of the street. That doesn't work with HOTEL, because the E and the L look different from behind.

So in the days when this kind of neon display was fashionable, some small businesses tried to think of a word or a name containing only the letters A, H, I, M, O, T, U, V, W, X or Y -- and it's quite hard when you've only got those letters to play around with.

[Tdol]

Is there a special term for it?

[BobK]

Originally Posted by rewboss

So in the days when this kind of neon display was fashionable, some small businesses tried to think of a word or a name containing only the letters A, H, I, M, O, T, U, V, W, X or Y -- and it's quite hard when you've only got those letters to play around with.

...But with a bit of creativity, it wouldn't be too hard to make B, D, K, and R reversible. So the sign-writers had more than half an alphabet to play with.

b